Unfortunately, with the rising cost of health insurance, we have had to really shop our policy. We have also had to increase from 10 percent to 25 percent the percentage that our employees pay. Nonetheless, we cover 75 percent of the medical insurance costs for our employees. Once our personal trainers reach and sustain full-time status (100 billable hours per month), they are eligible for the coverage. Massage therapists must work only 70 hours per month to keep theirs. We also offer our employees group-rate short-term disability coverage that they can pay for. Many of our active personal trainers have needed this coverage because of bike accidents or even pregnancies; it supplements their wages while they are out. For all of our full-time employees, we pay for long-term disability coverage. We view personal training as a profession and career and feel strongly about providing our employees health care coverage for many reasons. Primarily, we care about them. In addition, since owning a business already has enough pressure, insuring our employees gives us some peace of mind that, if anything happens to them, they will be covered. Not having in our industry many "business" role models that foster an atmosphere where work is fun and employees are appreciated, we looked outside our industry to learn what helps companies retain their employees. We learned that, in most industries, a well-planned health insurance program is a big security blanket for employees. Health care is sometimes underappreciated, but we definitely cherish knowing that our employees will be taken care of in emergencies. Five of the 15 employees using our health care coverage even use it to cover their families as well.

Ours is a small company that has significant overhead in facility costs and employee salaries. Although we realize that health insurance is necessary and important, we have found that this benefit is not at the top of our employees' wish list. (In our experience, most health and fitness professionals take good care of themselves and are comfortable with carrying their own policies, which have higher deductibles and are geared toward major health concerns.) Consequently, instead of paying for health benefits, we offer our staff extremely competitive salaries. Furthermore, it is common in our field to use independent contractors for some of the services that we provide. As independent contractors, they are not eligible for such benefits.

This has always been a very sensitive subject for me - the lack of adequate health insurance coverage for fitness professionals that is! As a former attorney for a large health insurance company, and a fitness professional I see the lack of health insurance coverage for us fitness professionals as one of the great voids in our industry. In my opinion, many fitness employers utilize our skills and services as "independent contractors" as one way to not have to extend health insurance benefits to us. As the owner of my own practice and studio, my business covers my health insurance for me, but again, I see the lack of coverage for many if not most fitness professionals as a serious void in our industry.

I am looking into ways to address this, and would love to hear from fitness professionals out there who see this as a problem (email me).